She dithers, and it breaks my heart that she doesn’t want to leave here, not even with Jack on the warpath.
I hand her the car keys and she heads for the kitchen without argument. It’s a first.
“Wait,” Jack says, and we both look at him. “Coleford?! What the fuck is there for her in fucking Coleford?”
I shrug. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to book her a room in town.”
I’m thinking of her hobbling through the night on a mission to escape something. I’m thinking about her running when she bumps into Bill and Rosie, or drinking herself unconscious with Eddie Stevens just as soon as he realises she’s back.
“I don’t want to stay in Coleford,” she says and her eyes are wide as they crash into mine. “I want to stay with you.”
Jack groans. He turns a full circle with his hands in his hair and then he points a finger between us. “Is this a thing?”
“A thing?” I ask, but Carrie’s already nodding.
I forget what little filter she has.
“It’s not a thing,” I say, even though it pains. Carrie looks as though I’ve struck her all over again, and that pains worse. I sigh as I look at her. “I care about you,” I say. “Very much. But this can’t be a… thing, Carrie. It wouldn’t be right.”
Her cheeks flush, her mouth closed tight as she hugs her arms around herself. I’d give anything to touch her, but I can’t.
“Well?” Jack asks. “Is it a fucking thing or isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “Christ, Jack. You know me. Do you even need to ask?”
“Of course I need to fucking ask,” he says. “And I need to know what the fuck you’re planning on doing from here.”
It’s the tone of his voice – the edge of interest under the anger. The hair on the back of my neck bristles, my blood running cold.
His eyes flit to her and linger too long, and I notice the brush and pan again, notice Carrie’s pink socks and the speed in which Jack must have composed himself enough to clear up the glass from the floor.
He’s a good man. One of the best. But Jack’s hot-headed, it takes him an age to calm down when he’s riled up, I’ve seen it more times than I can count over the years. But not now.
Because he wants her.
I’ve never seen Jack all that interested in anyone, but he’s interested in Carrie.
My Carrie.
Only she’s not my Carrie. She’s just a girl who needs my help.
Our help.
Jack’s right about Coleford. It’s not fair to hole a girl up alone miles from anyone she knows. It’s not fair to shove her into an impersonal hotel room and expect her to stay cooped up there while you try to sort her life out around your day job.
Carrie’s still hugging herself. Her eyes are still all on me. A strange thrum of possessiveness threatens to eat me up even though I’ve no claim and I never will have.
“What do you want to do?” Jack asks Carrie and this time she shrugs.
I can’t believe he gives a shit about what she wants after she’s brought a one-woman wave of destruction down on his home.
The Carrie Wells effect.
If I’d have put money on anyone being immune, it would’ve all been on Jack, but it seems I’d have been wrong.
“You’ve really got nowhere else to go?” he asks her and she shakes her head.
“I’ll clean up my mess,” she says. “Just like I told you I would.”
I’m on the verge of uttering the unthinkable and telling her I’ll take her back to mine, Pam be damned, when Jack lets out a sigh.
“You can stay,” he tells her, then looks at me. “Just for a few days until you sort something out with the housing agency. But no more secrets, and no more fucking crows.”
My jaw flaps, stumbling over words that should be grateful but feel like glass.
“I can stay?!” Carrie asks and she looks so happy that all thoughts of bursting her bubble fade to nothing.
“For a few days,” Jack says, but she’s nodding. Smiling.
“No more crows,” she says. “I promise.”
She’s never promised me anything. I wish she would.
I thank Jack and I mean it. I force my stupid jealousy aside and push myself to be the better man. The man I should be. The image of conscience and professionalism that I’ve been holding myself to my whole adult life.
And then we get to cleaning up the rest of the terrible fucking mess in his house.
I wait until Carrie’s out of earshot before I give Jack my thanks for the second time, man to man.
He nods. Tips his head and there’s that edge again. The one that makes me feel sick.
“I’m not doing it for you,” he says, “I’m doing it for her.”